Recently, it has been considered desirable to affix individual postage stamps to solicitations and other mass mailings instead of using metered mail or other forms of postage. The reasoning is that the recipient is more likely to view a stamped envelope as a personalized letter. The affixing of individual stamps to a mass mailing is generally automated, and uses equipment which receives a roll of stamps. The stamps are then conveyed by a roller having pins that fit into the perforations to engage the stamp roll and convey it in the equipment. The equipment separates each stamp from the adjacent stamp by separating successive stamps from the stamp roll at a perforation line and affixes the stamps to the envelopes.
The equipment used to separate these stamps typically is capable of receiving rolls comprising a wound strip of stamps of a certain length. However, when bulk quantities of stamps are produced, they are usually a web of printed stamps in a roll which is 15 to 25 stamps wide and several thousand stamps in length. In order to separate the wound roll into strips of stamps which are one stamp wide and can be used as individual rolls of stamps, the web of stamps is generally passed through a slitting apparatus which slits the web of stamps into individual single stamp width strips. The individual single stamp strips are then rolled to form individual stamp rolls.
It would be desirable to provide an apparatus and method capable of efficiently producing wound rolls of single strips of stamps, which are of a manageable length and size.